Sweet and Proper
by Road Rhythm
Summary: Apparently, Sam Winchester is important to somebody. Apparently, you're just what he likes.
TW: noncon due to possession (unbeknownst to Sam).

A/N: Many thanks to my lovely and insightful beta, Lavishsqualor.

* * *

. . . . .

* * *

It starts with black smoke. You're in your '93 Toyota Camry, teal with cream plush seats, on the way to school for only the third time since you got your parking permit, when black smoke starts pouring out of the vent. Your first reaction is grief. It _can't_ be dying on you. You just got this car. You spent a whole year saving up for it, and your parents helped.

Then the smoke is rearing up and coiling in mid-air. Nothing about the way it's moving makes sense, and you slam on the brakes before you consciously understand why. You'll never really know what your feelings are just then. It happens too fast.

One moment the smoke is slipping past your lips, pouring down your throat. The next, you're sitting in the cream plush driver's seat, but you're not. Something is sitting for you.

Horns start up behind you, and your foot shifts from the brake to the gas. You're moving again. It's the way to school. Your knowledge of the way to school is what's getting you there, but you're not driving. Now you are feeling terror. You don't even get to do that all on your own, though; it's as if a hand has reached out and turned your emotions to the most probable and convenient setting. You feel the terror distantly. You used to think of your emotions as part of yourself, but there's a middleman between you and them and you know better, now.

You arrive at school. You park. You make it to homeroom five minutes before the bell. There are still lots of seats open. Usually, you sit by the door with your friends Cara and Renée, with whom you have History and Calculus. Today, your eyes fix on this new guy who's only been here a couple of weeks. You don't want them to. You aren't given a choice.

He's tall and skinny, with longer hair than you like. You actually have a class with him, AP Physics, but you've never talked to him and you don't know anything about him. He's probably smart. He is cute, but he's weird as hell, and it doesn't really help that he's always trying to seem like he isn't.

You don't even know his name, but you feel yourself smiling as you sit down next to him, and you say, "Hey, Sam."

He starts a little. "Hey, um…." He's obviously fumbling for your name.

The smile falls off your face, but it's not because you're hurt. Nothing your face does has anything to do with what you're feeling. "Rachel. Rachel Nave."

"Right, sorry." He's blushing bright red. "Um, how are you?"

You smile again. Are smiled. You flip your hair over your shoulder. _How are you._ That's a good one.

"I'm fine," your voice answers. "I was wondering, do you want to join our Physics study group? A bunch of us are getting together to prep for the AP exam."

"I— Yeah. Yeah, I'd love to."

"Great! We're meeting Mondays and Thursdays at six, at the library. See you there?"

He shoots you a shy smile and nods.

The bell rings. The homeroom teacher shuts the door. You all say the Pledge of Allegiance. Something pledges allegiance for you.

* * *

You don't know its name. It moves in and it doesn't even introduce itself. You're not important.

Apparently Sam Winchester is important to somebody. Not to you, but somebody.

You're not deaf in here. You're not blind. You get to watch your friends get weirded out when you start dragging Sam everywhere he'll come with you. You get to listen to the ones who think your crush is pathetic, and to the ones who think it's adorable, and you get to wonder which half you despise more. You get to watch your grades drop off, because whatever's visiting doesn't care about AP Physics any more than is necessary to keep up appearances. You get to watch your mom make you breakfast and not even notice you're not you. You get to watch yourself close doors in your sister's face, and the thing moving your muscles doesn't even bother to do it fast enough for you not to see the hurt in her eyes. You get to watch your life fall apart like a slow-roasted chicken.

You lose time.

You wish you could lose a lot more of it.

One night, you're walking home from the library, because Sam was supposed to be there but he wasn't. You're cutting across the Traverses' lawn. There's barking. You stop.

Moxie. Her name is Moxie. She's a Sheltie, or something; she races back and forth behind the white picket fence, barking. Yapping.

The thing in you looks around. It thinks about opening the gate, bending down, picking Moxie up. It thinks about doing things that a five on the AP Biology test didn't even equip you to comprehend.

You wish it would. You've never hurt an animal, never entertained the idea except for once when you smushed a worm between a couple of bricks when you were little, but you wish that it would now. Somehow, that would be easier. If it would just do something evil other than what it's doing to you, you think it would somehow make this feel like it makes more sense.

It keeps walking. You walk with it.

* * *

Sam comes back to school a day later and he has a black eye and a cut on his cheek.

Your throat makes appalled, appalling cooing noises. Your mouth asks him what happened.

"A car fell on me," he says, and laughs bitterly, like it's a joke you're not supposed to get.

This isn't the first time you've given up your day to telling him that he shouldn't go into the family business if he doesn't want to, that he's too smart, too interesting, too _special_ to be a mechanic. You have a feeling it won't be your last.

You just can't see the point. If the thing driving you wanted to do something for Sam Winchester, or do something to him, then at least there'd be some kind of reason for you to be going through this. But it doesn't, it doesn't even particularly want to be here, itself, you don't think, and your life is getting flushed down the toilet just so this weird kid can go on and on and on about his problems.

You don't care about Sam Winchester's problems. You might care a little, if left to your own devices, but not under the circumstances. He just drones on and on while you're _possessed_ and you hate him. He doesn't know what problems are.

You try talking to it. You're not proud of that, but you're bored, and the only distraction is watching something that everyone thinks is you screw up your life. It's bored, too, you can tell, but it doesn't answer except once during a long test when it's gotten sick of marking the Scantron sheet at random.

 _Who are you?_ you want to know. It's what you've always wanted to know.

 _Just a nine-to-fiver_ , it answers.

 _When is the weekend?_ you think, and it laughs at your desperation.

It's funny. You thought you were past that.

* * *

Sam picks you up for the prom in an old black car. It's the kind of car that people who like cars get really excited about, but you don't particularly like cars. You don't even like yours, at this point.

"My brother let me borrow it," Sam says, and his voice is almost worshipful. He sounds more invested in this brother of his than he does in what he thinks is you.

Later, and you're in the brother's car, and the car is stopped, because the you-thing made it obvious that it expected Sam to drive you out somewhere, so he did. And he's still talking. He's going on about college, and how his dad will disown him, and how much he loves his brother, because gosh, does Sam Winchester ever love his brother. He got a full ride to Stanford, he tells you, and he says it like he's trying to be humble. You tell him he should go, because he's too smart, too interesting, too _special_ not to, like always, and he tries to act like he doesn't want to believe you, like always. You wonder if you'd hate him as much if you weren't a prisoner in your own body.

"It's like what I want isn't even important," he says, with his prom date next to him in a darkened, parked car.

"I know exactly what you mean." For the first time in weeks, that really could be you talking.

Sam lifts his eyes to yours. They're shy and a little hopeful. "Yeah?"

The thing in you uses your face to smile, and puts your hand on his face so he'll know you have a connection. "Yeah."

You are just what he likes: sweet and proper.

The backseat was always a foregone conclusion.

You thought it would be worse than this, but you've been riding around in here without being able to do anything about it for so long that it's almost more like watching a distasteful movie. Sam is fumbling and kind of useless. He's repulsively eager to please, and that might be worth something if not for the fact that your body is going to pretend that everything he does is good regardless. It's sweaty and mostly feels like minor menstrual cramps. It doesn't last very long, at least.

Later, it will be the worse you thought it would be. But that's later.

* * *

Sam drops you off at home. Your parents have conspicuously gone to bed, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, and your sister never stays up for you anymore because you never give her a reason. You take your home-dyed satin shoes off. You climb the stairs.

It lays down in your bed in its prom dress. It isn't your prom dress. It bought the dress it thought he wanted, not the one you wanted. It has a long skirt and a satin bodice. It looks like a wedding gown.

It waits in the dark with your eyes open. An hour slides by, then another. Then it opens your mouth and pours out.

When you make it back to school, which isn't for a while, Sam Winchester is gone like he'd never been.

* * *

You thought it was over when the driver left, but of course, it was just beginning.

* * *

You try to survive. You almost don't. Then you do. It was only seven weeks. Life is bigger than seven weeks. You didn't even really do anything in that time that changed your life much, though it feels like you should have. It gets to where most days, you can believe it never happened.

You still have a life, and you refuse to give it up for whoever the hell Sam Winchester is.

You'll never look at your parents the same way, but once you leave home it's not like you have to look at them much, at all. You get a master's degree. You get a job. You get married. You get pregnant. You get tokophobia. You get an abortion. Your husband leaves and your parents are disappointed and two of your friends stop talking to you. It's worth it not to have something else inside you.

Somehow, you and your sister came out of those seven weeks really close. You never explained, and you're not sure you would have if you could have, but weirdly, it's all right. She was the only one who treated you differently the day you got your body back. It wasn't exactly the same as noticing, but it's closer than anyone else got. When you started trying to make it up to her, she was grateful, almost fiercely. Like when you had abandoned her once, loving her again finally meant something. You love her for making it that easy. Every time you talk to her on the phone, you're happy. You have a sister, and you have a life.

May 1st, 2010 is a Saturday, so you sleep in. You get up, make coffee, and get the mail, just like the previous morning except an hour later. Your mail is a student loan bill, a Victoria's Secret catalogue, the Albertsons circular, and an invitation to your high school reunion printed on lime-green cardstock. You drop the last three into the trash without looking at them.

You go to the bathroom to rid yourself of the coffee. You don't bother turning on the light, because you know where everything is; it's your bathroom. So, it comes back in the dark. You don't know it's coming until it touches your lips.

It's everything like your nightmares and nothing like your nightmares.

It doesn't put your shoes on. It leaves your front door unlocked. It drives two towns over and parks at a Goodwill and goes to the rack with all the prom dresses and wedding gowns with stains on them ($9 - $19). Clothes from Goodwill all smell like exactly the same perfume, you've noticed. You used to shop there, before you had a good job and when you still thought that perfume would come out in the wash. You leave wearing a dress without paying for it. It's long enough that it hides your bare feet.

You are beyond fear. Partly this is because fear is an inadequate word. Partly this is because fear is bodily, and your body is not your own. Your body was never your own.

You're not in control, but you realize that this time, it isn't, either.

It still doesn't introduce itself.

What once was your driver is driven to a forgotten room in an abandoned building. It drives you with it. It is afraid. That's the best part, and the worst. You stand together, bone for bone, staring at other faces you've never seen that are a mirror of yours in their perfect blankness. You are all waiting, and some part of you knows what you're waiting for.

Plastic organza brushes your toes. This dress is longer than the one you were raped in.

When he comes in, he's not alone in his body, either. It doesn't make you feel closer to him. It doesn't make you feel anything.

Apparently Sam Winchester is important to somebody.

He tears you apart, and you're just what he likes.


End file.
